


Happenings:.

by hawkass (eversingingleaves)



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fix-it fic, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eversingingleaves/pseuds/hawkass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint sees dead people. Not really, just a certain handler, and it starts to mess with his ability to, well, functions.</p><p>Excerpt: The first time it happened he was in Amsterdam working an op. The suit was what caught his eye, the stance what kept his attention, even as the person of interest he’d been tasked to watch stepped out of the shop, drawing Clint’s gaze away from the besuited figure for just a second. His target climbed into a waiting taxi as the archer cursed under his breath.</p><p>The man in the suit was gone, but Clint knew in his bones who it had been, even as he dashed across rooftops in pursuit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happenings:.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for The Avengers movie.  
> Warnings: Horribly handled grief, magical happy endings

The first time it happened he was in Amsterdam working an op. The suit was what caught his eye, the stance what kept his attention, even as the person of interest he’d been tasked to watch stepped out of the shop, drawing Clint’s gaze away from the besuited figure for just a second. His target climbed into a waiting taxi as the archer cursed under his breath.

The man in the suit was gone, but Clint knew in his bones who it had been, even as he dashed across rooftops in pursuit.

He didn’t tell anyone, didn’t share his moment of clarity with Natasha- partially for fear she’d call him crazy but more for fear that she wouldn’t. Coulson’s death had hit her just as hard; the Black Widow had feelings, even if she kept them quiet and humble and alone to herself in the darkest of evenings and deepest of vodka bottles. Most days he could barely meet her eyes, so reflected was his own grief therein.

It happened again in Reno. In a city full of suits, Clint caught the gesture that so defined his handler in his mind; a single glimpse of the man straightening the cuffs of a fine jacket set him off running in pursuit.

“Abort mission, abort-” he gasped into the comm, dropping from his perch into a filthy alleyway and yanking the damn thing from his ear. He crushed it with a decisive heel- if he couldn’t hear the orders to come back, he couldn’t follow them- and Clint sprinted into the crowd, weaving his best. Only the passage of a few minutes, and he’d caught up to Phil, Phil who was dead, Phil who was-

Not Phil.

The hand curling around the man’s elbow jerked back as if burned. Phil-who-was-not-Phil gave him a startled look, one that was mirrored by the agent, before shooting him a dirty glare with the face that didn’t belong with that posture or that suit or the gesture and it took all Clint had to stifle the irrational anger at the retreating figure. How dare he- How dare-

It didn’t take long to find the kind of place where the bartender asked no questions; the hopeless and the broke need not tell their stories like some dramatic gambling addiction re-enactment. Clint was blessed with a dark corner and a grimy bar, gritty even in the midday sun; the whiskey they served was his father’s brand and the archer couldn’t even be bothered to find the black humor in that as he downed glass after glass, no chaser. No, he’d done enough chasing for the day. SHIELD would catch up with him eventually, as he took no precautions in hiding, but until then he wanted to be as far away from the pathetic excuse for an existence he called a life.

The clink of a glass and the scrape of a stool leg broke his reverie and now his mind was just being cruel and twisted, because he swore he could see Phil Coulson sidling up to the bar to have a seat next to him. Clint cut his eyes over once, and then away, sure he was being fucked with, sure that some monster or magic or something was just back for round two and he’d be damned if he couldn’t finish his drink before he got out his gun.

“Talk to me, Barton,” the figure ordered, voice low but good god, it was a perfect imitation and that was cruelest of all and Clint slammed his glass down on the bar hard enough to leave a dent in the cheap wood. The world spun.

He was going to be sick.

Pale, hollow-eyed, the archer stumbled his way to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of his stomach- some no-longer-dry toast and half a boiled egg Natasha had forced him to eat- before he heard footsteps behind him. Elbows set against the toilet seat and facing away from the door, it was a terribly un-strategic position but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Yeah, I’ve got eyes on him- No, that’s not necessary. Yes, sir. Understood.” The voice of Phil was talking to someone, the tinny half-response from a cell phone making the other conversationalist unidentifiable. A click ended the call just as another wave of nausea ripped through him, whether triggered by the thought of another Not-Phil or by the alcohol or some combination of both, Clint couldn’t tell.

“Whoever th’ fuck y’are, jus’- jus’ go. You can magic me ‘nother day, assclown, but righ’ now ‘m seein’ too much of m’insides t’care much,” Clint growled. It wouldn’t work, he knew it wouldn’t work- bullies and enemies and terrorists didn’t just stop because you told them to, that he knew well, but the words just came tumbling from his mouth regardless.

“Y’can’t be Phil, an’ y’gotta jus’- jus’ leave me be, if y’know what’s good fer ya,” he finished, exhausted, strained, too tired to fight. It was pathetic, really, but if the man had wanted to kill him, he could have stuck a knife between his ribs ten minutes ago. He must want something else, Clint’s alcohol-logged brain surmised.

“I can’t? Well, now. That’s news to me.” The words were modulated perfectly, calculated to how Phil would say them. That was, if he hadn’t died because of Clint. A hand appeared under the stall door, offering something, something wrapped- a peppermint, the big, soft kind his handler had a tin of in his office, hidden in the bottom right drawer.

Shaking hands unlocked the stall door as an ashen Clint Barton stood, leaning heavily on the wall for support as the door swung open to reveal Phil. His Phil. His Coulson.

“Talk to me, Barton,” Phil repeated, concern, worry edging into his voice as his brow furrowed. “We’ve got pickup in ten, so let’s get you cleaned up,” he continued, words barely audible over the rapid pounding in Clint’s ears, the rushing of the impossible, Phil speaking as if it was just another mission.

“Talk to me, Barton,” his handler ordered, and so he did.


End file.
